Friday, 24 March 2017

KNITTED RAGLAN SWEATER

Some friends and I have recently started meeting up for "strikk & drikk" evenings, where we basically meet up and sit around and chat and knit while having a couple of drinks ("strikk & drikk" is Norwegian for "knit & drink"). It's been really fun, and it's also put me on a bit of a knitting kick!

And while on this knitting kick, I went ahead and knitted my first sweater! Actually, I knitted two, this is the second one (I was going to do a post on the first one but never got around to it, cause, you know, life!). I've always been a bit put off by knitting sweaters as they seemed like such big projects, and I have a tendency to get distracted and bored if a knitting project is too time consuming. Admittedly, this project is still lying there unfinished in my knitting basket. But I was encouraged by one of the girls from my knitting group who has only been knitting for a couple of months now and she's already finished three sweaters (and several headbands made out of the leftover yarn). Besides, I needed a break from all the knitted baby blankets! (Although I also knitted another one of those for a friend who's expecting haha)

For the first sweater, I used this pattern, but I used Drops Brushed Alpaca Silk which meant I had to adjust the pattern a little to make up for the tension difference. I knitted the whole sweater in about two weeks, and was so happy with the result that I decided to knit another one and got started straight away.

For the second sweater though, I wanted to make a couple of adjustments. I wanted a bit of a tighter knit, so I decided to use 4mm needles (as opposed to 6mm as the original pattern called for). I made some adjustments to the length of the sweater, inverted the sleeves for a subtle contrast, and did a slight adjustment to the raglan construction.

And overall, I'm so happy with the result. I loved the first sweater and I've worn it a ton, but I think I like the second one even more! But while the first sweater took me about two weeks to knit, the second one took me over two months! This was partly because of the smaller needles that obviously take a longer time to work with, but I also got really demotivated halfway through because I was convinced I wasn't actually going to like the fit and that I was spending all this time knitting a sweater I'd have no use for. I even wrote down a shortlist of potential people I could gift it to in case it didn't fit me. So when I finally finished it and tried it on, imagine my relief that it not only fit, but fit exactly how I wanted it! And with the soft and cozy alpaca silk yarn mix, it makes for such a comfy sweater. Think I'm gonna have to knit about a dozen more of these!

Before I knit myself another sweater though, I'm planning on knitting one for Oscar. I'm thinking either this pattern or this one. What do you guys think?